Chapter XIV

Having carried the things indoors, Yourii, for want of something else to do, went down the steps leading to the garden. It was dark as the grave, and the sky with it vast company of gleaming stars enhanced the weird effect. There, on one of the steps, sat Lialia; her little grey form was scarcely perceptible in the gloom.

"Is that you, Yourii?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," he replied, as he sat down beside her. Dreamily she leant her head on his shoulder, and the fragrance of her fresh, sweet girlhood touched his senses.

"Did you have good sport?" said Lialia. Then after a pause, she added softly, "and where is Anatole Pavlovitch? I heard you drive up."

"Your Anatole Pavlovitch is a dirty beast!" is what Yourii, feeling suddenly incensed, would have liked to say. However, he answered carelessly:

"I really don't know. He had to see a patient."

"A patient," repeated Lialia mechanically. She said no more, but gazed at the stars.

She was not vexed that Riasantzeff had not come. On the contrary, she wished to be alone, so that, undisturbed by his presence, she might give herself up to delicious meditation. To her, the sentiment that filled her youthful being was strange and sweet and tender. It was the consciousness of a climax, desired, inevitable, and yet disturbing, which should close the page of her past life and commence that of her new one. So new, indeed, that Lialia was to become an entirely different being.

To Yourii it was strange that his merry, laughing sister should have become so quiet and pensive. Depressed and irritable himself, everything, Lialia, the dark garden the distant starlit sky seemed to him sad and cold. He did not perceive that this dreamy mood concealed not sorrow, but the very essence and fulness of life. In the wide heaven surged forces immeasurable and unknown; the dim garden drew forth vital sap from the earth; and in Lialia's heart there was a joy so full, so complete, that she feared lest any movement, any impression should break the spell. Radiant as the starry heaven, mysterious as the dark garden, harmonies of love and yearning vibrated within her soul.

"Tell me, Lialia, do you love Anatole Pavlovitch very much?" asked Yourii, gently, as if he feared to rouse her.

"How can you ask?" she thought, but, recollecting herself, she nestled closer to her brother, grateful to him for not speaking of anything else but of her life's one interest--the man she adored.

"Yes, very much," she replied, so softly that Yourii guessed rather than heard what she said, striving to restrain her tears of joy. Yet Yourii thought that he could detect a certain note of sadness in her voice, and his pity for her, as his hatred of Riasantzeff, increased.

"Why?" he asked, feeling amazed at such a question.